August 23, 2008

A dear friend of mine sent me an email this morning with the "Saint of the Day". She knows my deep heart desire to spend some time in Peru, and we'd recently been talking about a Peruvian Saint, Saint Rose of Lima. I smiled when I woke this morning and found her message. She told me simply that she was thinking of me this morning, and forwarded on the following:

August 23, 2008
St. Rose of Lima
(1586-1617)
The first canonized saint of the New World has one characteristic of all saints—the suffering of opposition—and another characteristic which is more for admiration than for imitation—excessive practice of mortification.

She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America was in its first century of evangelization. She seems to have taken Catherine of Siena as a model, in spite of the objections and ridicule of parents and friends.

The saints have so great a love of God that what seems bizarre to us, and is indeed sometimes imprudent, is simply a logical carrying out of a conviction that anything that might endanger a loving relationship with God must be rooted out. So, because her beauty was so often
admired, Rose used to rub her face with pepper to produce disfiguring blotches. Later, she wore a thick circlet of silver on her head, studded on the inside, like a crown of thorns.

When her parents fell into financial trouble, she worked in the garden all day and sewed at night. Ten years of struggle against her parents began when they tried to make Rose marry. They refused to let her enter a convent, and out of obedience she continued her life of
penance and solitude at home as a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic. So deep was her desire to live the life of Christ that she spent most of her time at home in solitude.

During the last few years of her life, Rose set up a room in the house where she cared for homeless children, the elderly and the sick. This was a beginning of social services in Peru. Though secluded in life and activity, she was brought to the attention of Inquisition
interrogators, who could only say that she was influenced by grace.

What might have been a merely eccentric life was transfigured from the inside. If we remember some unusual penances, we should also remember the greatest thing about Rose: a love of God so ardent that it withstood ridicule from without, violent temptation and lengthy periods of sickness. When she died at 31, the city turned out for her funeral. Prominent men took turns carrying her coffin.

Comment:

It is easy to dismiss excessive penances of the saints as the expression of a certain culture or temperament. But a woman wearing a crown of thorns may at least prod our consciences. We enjoy the most comfort-oriented life in human history. We eat too much, drink too much, use a million gadgets, fill our eyes and ears with everything imaginable. Commerce thrives on creating useless needs to spend our money on. It seems that when we have become most like slaves, there is the greatest talk of "freedom." Are we willing to discipline ourselves in such an atmosphere?

Quote:

"If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life maimed or crippled than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna" (Matthew 18:8–9).

(This entry appears in the print edition of Saint of the Day.)

I was glad to know that today is the day of the Patron Saint of the country that has so stolen my heart.

Today is also my grandpa's birthday. I wrote a few weeks ago about time spent in a cemetery, saying goodbye, letting eight years of woundedness begin to heal. Today feels bittersweet, as his birthdays often have, but it is no longer a day where I am working to forget, to hide, to avoid the guilt that would come springing to the surface, and for that I am grateful.

The plan is to make today a quiet one. I'm attending a fun concert/party later tonight, with some old and some new friends, and I need to do a few errands this morning sometime. But other than that, I'm going to simply enjoy quiet. To read and pray and rest. To remember my grandpa, and think about the country of Peru, to which Jesus has so drawn my heart. To pray for friends, and family members (my brother T. is likely facing another surgery on his wrist), to find joy. To write. To simply rest in the presence of Jesus for a while.